Chapter 117: Chapter 117

In the moment of crisis, Shan was unable to react immediately to the attack aimed at Asha.

It was because he had turned his gaze away, suspecting that the doppelganger was using the ghouls to draw attention while attacking from elsewhere.

Unlike him, the reason Lug reacted right away was that he was terrified of the ghouls.

Unlike the others who were careless, thinking that the ghouls would obviously be swept away with a single purification miracle, Lug could not take his eyes off them due to irrational fear.

As a result, Asha was able to save her life thanks to that.

“Kugh!”

As Lug (whose height alone easily exceeded two meters and possessed long arms) reached out with his two-handed axe, the distance of nearly four meters was closed in an instant.

The doppelganger’s attack, which originally would have severed her neck, struck the axe and slightly shifted its trajectory, tearing her carotid artery.

As Asha clutched her bleeding neck and collapsed helplessly, everyone rushed in horror to protect her.

“Ah……!”

“High Priestess!”

The two priests next to Asha exchanged glanced for less than a second, then immediately called upon miracles.

One called for a miracle to heal wounds, and the other for a miracle to assist vital functions.

Considering that trying to treat her simultaneously using the same method would not be very efficient, it was truly the optimal lifesaving measure.

It was a response worthy of priests who possessed both respectable skill and treatment experience, specially handpicked by Cheryn.

Meanwhile, Shan, who arrived a step late, immediately confronted the doppelganger and prevented a finishing blow.

Thanks to the rotten flesh falling from all over its armor, he was able to realize what its trick had been.

‘After turning into a ghoul, it applied the flesh of the other creatures to its body to hide the magic patterns!’

It was a creature so cunning it sent chills down his spine.

Targeting Asha, the most powerful priest, was one thing, but even though it could not speak, it was smarter than most humans.

“Surround it!”

However, apart from that, it was not as if the current situation was favorable to the creature.

Here, all the royal knights, including Shan, were gathered, and the creature was alone.

While Shan converted Thousand Shapes into a spear to drive the creature back, Abras and Colun split to the left and right, preventing the doppelganger from evading to the side.

Surrounded by royal knights, the doppelganger was driven into a corner in an instant.

No matter how outstanding its combat ability was, in the end, it was the same as a person with two arms (at least, taking such a form) so there was no way for it to cope with attacks flying from all directions.

If each individual’s combat ability had been inferior, it might have been one thing, but were they not all skilled fighters who had been handpicked?

Not to mention Lug, even Abras and Colun were far more skilled than ordinary knights.

As those two thrust forward shields fully armed with defensive spirit and narrowed the distance, it had to be pushed back helplessly.

The moment Shan and Lug launched a simultaneous attack targeting the doppelganger cornered like that…

“Ah!”

“Above!”

Driven into a corner, the doppelganger suddenly transformed Thousand Shapes into a stick, extended it long, and attempted a pole vault.

Leaping several meters high in an instant, the creature looked down at Shan waiting at the landing spot, extended the retrieved weapon again to stake it into a distant pillar, and retracted it to move as if flying through the sky.

It was an application method that even Shan himself would not have easily thought of before being driven into such a corner.

It seemed that the dramatic crisis situation had pushed the creature’s creativity to its limit.

However, escaping the encirclement once like that did not change anything.

Lug, who had narrowed the distance in a few strides before anyone realized, swung his axe to generate wind and push the doppelganger back, and Shan also applied the creature’s method just as it was to pursue it.

Now, its unique night vision could no longer be an advantage.

This was because the squires, who had brought plenty of lamp magic tools in advance, threw them in all directions to illuminate the area.

The battle, taking the vast breeding grounds as its stage, continued for several more minutes after that.

Whenever cornered, the doppelganger constantly overcame crises through new methods, or conversely targeted them.

It scooped up dirt like a shovel from areas where the floor or wall had crumbled to reveal earth, then scattered it to block their vision, or divided its weapon into two branches to defend against two attacks at once.

It also formed it into the shape of a net to capture Colun, then shook it to block his path.

Such sights injected fresh inspiration into Shan.

By watching a being possessing the same ability as his own overcome a disadvantageous battle, he was able to learn what to do, and how to do even better.

He was effectively going through all the practical experience here that he had failed to accumulate while keeping Thousand Shapes tightly hidden.

After struggling so hard for a long time, the fight finally approached its end.

The moment the doppelganger, thoroughly exhausted and catching its breath, was pushed back while blocking Lug’s axe, Shan, who rushed in from the opposite side, transformed Thousand Shapes into a curved blade over two meters in blade length and swung it.

Along with the long, thin, flexible curved blade swooshing past, the doppelganger’s head separated from its body, and blood spewed out.

“I-Is it over?”

“Probably. Surely it wouldn’t be alive even with its head cut off.”

Even while saying so, the knights remained on guard for a few more seconds, wondering if the creature might suddenly revive.

A moment later, the creature’s body turned soft and melted away.

The scattered blood, the armor it wore, and even the weapon… all of it.

Only then did everyone realize it was over and let out a sigh of relief.

“To be this difficult to catch even four against one……”

“I am sorry to say this, but it was truly nothing short of a monster.”

“I agree.”

After grumbling briefly about how tough the battle had been, Shan decided to request treatment for his comrades first.

Unlike Shan, who was relatively fine thanks to the creature obsessively dodging him, the remaining three were in absolute shambles.

To request treatment, Shan approached the priests who had taken refuge in the corner.

“Is High Priestess Asha alright?”

“Fortunately, thanks to dispatching it quickly, she seems likely to wake up soon. But……”

While wondering why the voice trailed off for a moment, Shan realized the reason only after seeing Asha’s exposed face.

Whether it had broken in the process of being attacked, the face inside the broken mask was revealed.

*

A few minutes later, Asha, upon regaining consciousness, briefly stiffened her expression at her face having been exposed, then let out a soft sigh.

After that, she bowed her head lightly to Lug.

“Thank you for saving me, Baron.”

“A-Ah, it was nothing. Haha……”

Lug shrugged his shoulders with a bashful expression.

“However, something is strange.”

Just then, the mage Udin beside them spoke with a furrowed brow.

He was looking down at the traces of the dead doppelganger.

“In what way?”

“That such a powerful monster did not drop a single Mana Stone.”

“Well, it wasn’t originally such a powerful monster, but His Grace the Duke was simply too strong……”

“No, it is not like that. A strong power must naturally have a source. For a weak monster without even a Mana Stone to perfectly reproduce the same skill or magic tools as His Grace makes no sense.”

Udin, who refuted the opinion of the royal knight Abras, looked around and spoke.

“Perhaps this creature might not be the main body.”

“Don’t tell me……”

The faces of everyone turned pale as they imagined dozens of Shans charging at them simultaneously.

Shan also felt something click neatly into place in his mind upon hearing this.

The fact that it showed nothing even after being stabbed by Thousand Shapes, or how instead of escaping outside, it was strangely on guard and blocking them from going deeper inside……

Although difficult to explain logically, he had felt a sense of incongruity, and Udin’s hypothesis supported it.

“That makes sense. Let’s go inside and check.”

“Y-Your Grace. For now, a bit of rest……”

The royal knight Colun spoke, waving his hands.

Although their wounds had been healed and they had even received the blessing of vitality, their mental fatigue was still far too severe.

A fight where taking one’s eyes off for a split second meant death was just that taxing.

“I will go inside alone for now, so everyone rest here.”

“We shall accompany you.”

Two mages who were perfectly fine as they had not participated in combat followed behind Shan.

Leaving the others to rest in the breeding grounds, the three explored the inner area.

As it was an urgent inspection, unlike before, even if usable items or records were seen, they ignored them all.

Before long, they were able to discover a suspicious space.

“What is this……?”

“It really looks suspicious.”

The door that appeared after entering the door inside the breeding grounds and passing through one more hallway was anything but ordinary in appearance.

Unlike ordinary metal, it had a dark, blackish color, and looked thick and sturdy at a glance.

“How on earth do we open this?”

“There is text engraved here. ‘Dangerous Creature Under Management, Strictly No Entry for Unauthorized Personnel’……Huh?”

The mage reading the characters turned his head in surprise at a clanking sound.

As Shan brought Thousand Shapes to the door, the lock released along with the sound of grinding metal.

‘It actually works.’

He had wondered just in case, but it seemed the owner of this weapon had even been granted authority to freely enter and exit various parts of the facility.

Shan nodded to the mages, whose eyes were wide open.

“Let’s enter.”

Pushing the door open with force to step inside, Shan and the mages narrowed their eyes upon seeing what was situated in the inner area.

On one side of the building furnished like a mage’s laboratory, a large lump of flesh was contained inside a broken glass tube.

Something resembling a lump made by skinning an animal, extracting only the flesh, and clumping it together tightly……

That thoroughly unpleasant thing was extending a few tentacles, and surprisingly, beneath them, Shan’s naked body was visible.

Unlike the upper body, which was completely formed, the lower body was barely about one-third formed.

“Ah……”

“T-That creature seems to be the main body, Your Grace!”

Unlike the female mage who flushed red in fluster, Udin shouted urgently, pointing at the creature.

He seemed to want to tell him to deal with that immediately, but his words could not catch up to his thoughts.

Of course, while he was chattering, Shan was already drawing the sword from his waist and swinging it.

As he severed the connected tentacles using ‘Guardian of the East’, which he had brought instead of Red Oath, Shan’s form that was being slowly constructed collapsed.

“Is this creature the main body of the doppelganger?”

“P-Probably.”

On the wriggling lump of flesh, the same pattern as Shan’s clone created earlier was drawn.

After examining the surroundings for a moment, he transformed Thousand Shapes into the form of a longsword and drove it in.

Just like when he had driven it into the hydra’s body in the past, the surroundings instantly turned white.

*

What first appeared was the sight of Shan and the two mages entering together.

The creature was afraid.

Of exposing its helpless main body to someone.

The reason why the doppelganger had tried so hard not to let them inside here could also be understood.

Its main body was not only harmless and powerless, but also excessively large, making it difficult to move from where it currently was.

Before long, rewinding time a bit further back, the period where it was tag-teamed by four royal knights, including Shan, appeared.

The moment it gathered scattered ghouls in one place to launch a surprise attack on Asha, its one-on-one duel with Shan, and its surprise attack on Lug and the squire beside him followed.

Ridiculously, the creature, just like Shan, was feeling thrill in a dizzying fight where life was on the line.

And a bit earlier, memories before this thing had created the clone came to mind.

‘Ah……’

The main body of the doppelganger, through whatever means, was extending its senses across this entire facility.

This was closer to something spiritual rather than the five senses.

As those senses informed it, the entrance to the facility, which had been closed for a long time, had just opened moments ago.

The number of intruders felt from there was about twenty.

Among them was the owner of the most brightly shining soul.

The doppelganger instinctively replicated the being that possessed power so large and mighty it overwhelmed all the rest.

So powerful was it that only after consuming a substantial amount of the power gathered while crouching here for a long time could it barely manifest it.

Shan’s clone born like that used the replicated Thousand Shapes to open the locked door and left the room.

In order to eliminate the intruders who would threaten its main body.

‘So that was how it went?’

He had wondered how it could copy an opponent it had not even encountered face-to-face.

If he had not brought Thousand Shapes with him, it wouldn’t have even been able to come out of here in the first place, so it was truly out of luck.

While recording the new knowledge in his mind, the timeframe flowed back to before they excavated the ruins.

The doppelganger replicated a ghoul and wildly pounded on the glass tube containing itself.

Before long, with a clinking sound, the glass tube broke, and the creature gained its freedom.

Going back further into the past from then, the creature had not broken the glass tube right away.

The doppelganger had stubbornly pounded on the glass tube for several years, or perhaps several decades.

Continuously repeating the process of absorbing the ghoul and recreating it whenever its arm became crushed from pounding.

Going further back than that, back several hundred years, Shan reached the moment when the creature’s spiritual sense was unsealed.

It seemed this glass tube possessed the function of sealing the doppelganger to prevent it from recklessly replicating creatures outside the tube, but that function appeared to have exhausted its power over a long period of time.

Scouring the surroundings, the creature realized that the only thing it could replicate was the ghouls, so it replicated them and began pounding on the glass tube.

Further back than that, after time so long it was difficult to even measure passed while merely confined inside the glass tube.

Finally, just like during the hydra’s time, a timeframe was reached where people were alive.

The mage with reverse-colored eyes seen previously was speaking as if growling while gathering things in the room.

“Damn it, this makes no sense! Those free-loading upper echelon bastards! Is it really all over like this? This makes no sense……!”

Though the reason was unknown, he seemed considerably enraged.

A appearance completely different from his calm and polite demeanour before.

Unable to contain his rage, he looked around and kicked the glass tube in which the doppelganger was trapped.

“What did I come all the way to a remote place like this for?! Those retarded executor bastards! If those monkeys only know how to use magic for fighting, shouldn’t they at least do that properly?! Why the hell are they leeching tax money if they’re going to be like this?!”

Letting out a monstrous shriek, he soon panted while gathering his belongings.

Mutterings such as ‘Right.’, ‘There is still hope.’, and ‘It’s fine as long as I flee to the land of barbarians.’ continued.

Before long, as he opened the closed door, shouted and screams were heard from beyond the hallway.

“All mana necessary to maintain research institute functions has been exhausted!”

“Director! You must escape quickly! The monster containment facility is being unsealed…”

Bang! As the solid metal door closed, silence returned once more.

Rewinding time a bit further into the past, the researcher with reverse-colored eyes from earlier was seen attending the master of Thousand Shapes.

It seemed to be an extension of the scene seen previously.

“Is this the doppelganger?”

“Yes. It can be called the greatest masterpiece created by monster physiology. In theory, if we just capture a single monster, we can continuously replicate it to mobilize it for all sorts of experiments! Research institutes within the empire that possess this creature number less than five, and we are one of…”

Along with the prattling voice cutting off, Shan’s consciousness returned to normal.

*

‘Ah.’

Having spent a long time in the doppelganger’s perspective this time as well, Shan closed his eyes and focused his thoughts to familiarize himself with his current body and organize the information he had just gained.

What interrupted this was the exclamations of the two startled mages.

“Oh, my goodness……!”

“Your Grace the Duke! Please look here!”

As the lingering aftertaste of peeking into memories broke, Shan slightly grimaced and turned his head.

“What is it?”

“Books! And tens of volumes at that!”

“It’s my first time seeing state of preservation this pristine!”

Come to think of it, the books in this isolation room were in far better condition than those outside.

It was merely that he had failed to realize it earlier because the doppelganger’s main body had monopolized his gaze.

This was because, as this place was an isolation room storing the doppelganger, sealing measures had been put in place to prevent the creature from extending its spiritual sense outside to replicate something.

Where else could be better for preserving books than a sealed space under conditions where humidity, temperature, and the like were appropriately maintained?

The two mages, with expressions as if completely spellbound, carefully pulled out the books and placed them into the cart they had brought.

Concerned that the books might rub against each other and be damaged, placing one volume, covering it with a cloth, and adding another volume on top even felt reverent.

In the meantime, Shan decided to do what he had to do.

Finishing off the doppelganger that was trying to replicate him once more.

“Right, well, since our positions were different, I killed you, but…… you suffered a lot as well.”

Looking at the wriggling lump of flesh, Shan muttered to himself despite himself.

Although it was a damned bastard that had killed his comrade, after experiencing a long time with that body, it was hard to hate it completely.

When it copied Shan’s body, it was cunning as could be, but in the end, its nature was merely a creature struggling to live without high intelligence.

After cutting open the creature’s body with his sword, he shoved his hand deep inside and pulled it back out, dragging out a large sphere in which various complex colors were intertwined.

It seemed this was its Mana Stone and at the same time the brain that maintained its main body.

The doppelganger’s flesh, from which the core was pulled out, hardened its wriggling body, and soon gradually cooled down.

Shan tapped the lump of flesh with his foot and fell into thought.

‘Can I take this as well?’

Perhaps it might be a material with magical value, but taking it all the way to Hasra felt like it would completely rot away during that time.

Since a refrigerator merely slows down rotting rather than preventing it.

Would it be better to dry it like other monster materials?

“Whoa!”

“D-Don’t tell me……”

Shan, who had been lost in thought for a moment, whipped his head around at the exclamation heard from behind.

What on earth was making them cause such a fuss again?

Udin pointed at the doppelganger’s core with a face turned pale.

“Your Grace the Duke. Look at this, this thing embedded inside here.”

What he pointed to was a gold metal mixed with light purple, situated inside the intertwined core.

“I wondered since I had only seen it in records…… but looking at the magic reaction, it is certain. This is True Gold!”